Let's Build Resiliency from the Roots Up
🌲 The Plant Cunning Conference is a 3-day in-person event featuring speakers, workshops, plant walks, artists, and live music to build community and resiliency with people wise to the ways of Nature at the beautiful Cohosh Creek Herb Farm and Sanctuary in Central New York.
Featuring
The speakers for the 2024 Plant Cunning Conference are some of the most inspiring thought leaders, authors, herbalist, astrologers and gardeners of our time. We will have plant walks, fungi walks, hands on workshops and lectures.
Pam Montgomery
Author, teacher, international speaker and Earth Elder who has passionately embraced her role as a spokesperson for the green beings and has been investigating plants/trees and their intelligent spiritual nature for more than three decades. She is the author of two books one of which is the highly acclaimed Plant Spirit Healing; A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness and Partner Earth; A Spiritual Ecology. She operates the Partner Earth Education Center at Sweetwater Sanctuary in Danby, Vermont where co-creative partnership with Nature research takes place. Pam also teaches internationally on plant spirit healing, spiritual ecology and people as Nature Evolutionaries. She is a founding member of United Plant Savers and more recently the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries or O.N.E. Her latest passion is to engage ceremonially in full symbiosis within the plant/human matrix where the elder common plants and trees initiate and guide us into being truly human.
Mychal A. Bryan
Mychal A. Bryan is a Bahamian-Jamaican astrologer, journalist, author, and clinical hypnotherapist, specializing in hypnotic dreamwork. In May 2023, he published Mastering Traditional Astrology: A Depth of Beginning in the Celestial Art. He is the founder of Oraculos School of Astrology (OSA), where he offers a rigorous training program in concrete, event-based astrology. He practices Renaissance and Uranian Astrology in his client work, focusing largely on predictive and medical astrology research. Within his healing practice, Mychal is also a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (CIYT) and Jikiden Reiki teacher. An avid student of the Western mystery tradition, he is entrenched in the world of Jewish mysticism, hermeticism, alchemy, geomancy, and the Qabalistic Tarot. To study with Mychal, visit: www.OraculosAstrology.com
7Song
The story of 7Song's birth remains a mystery. He was 'found' one day hitchhiking on a New York State turnpike with a sign saying, "My name is 7Song, please teach me how to be an herbalist." The language he spoke was indecipherable but seemed to be a cobbled mix of Latin and Greek botanical names (which led to speculation that he likely was tutored by some type of botanist, though this was never proven).
Coincidentally, the first person to pick him up was a retired ethnobotanist on a field trip to find the origins of Sassafras. From there, they eventually reached the mountains of Chimborazo in Ecadour, where 7Song spent the next 7 years living in a hollowed-out tree, absorbing all he could from his surroundings.
Afterward, he traveled the hippie circuit, learning all he could about herbal medicine and making beaded crystal necklaces.
Since then, he has made it his mission to help others learn the value of herbal medicine (but let the necklaces go, as they kept breaking while he was wildcrafting).
Lisa Fazio
Peasant Herbalist, Writer, Plant Healing Artist, and author of Della Medicina: Plants of Italian American Folk Medicine (Inner Traditions, 2023). Lisa leads the Root Circle, a center for folk medicine, ancestral remembrance and plant based culture offering classes and resources.
Lisa's class is on Italian Folk Medicine, also known as “medicina popolare” or "medicine of the people". Italian folk medicine is also called “medicina popolare” or the “medicine of the people” and it emerged from the rural peasants of Southern Italy with influences from around the Mediterranean world. In this class we’ll discuss the basics of Italian folk medicine, its connection to the ancient Greek and Roman physicians, animism, folk Catholicism and Traditional Western Herbalism. We’ll learn about some of the most important traditional plants and the methods of treatment that they’re used in. Topics will include: Italian herbalism, preparations, how Italian witchcraft, folk Catholoicsm, and folk medicine have syncretized, and Benedicaria (the American form of Italian folk medicine).
Charis Lindrooth
Charis Lindrooth is the founder and director of BotanicWise, a platform dedicated to authentic herbal education, where plant wisdom can be shared and where like-minded people can connect and build a community to steward land, medicinal plants, and supportive relationships with each other. As a practicing herbalist and chiropractor for three decades, Charis has devoted years of study to the workings of the brain and holistic solutions to support better cognition and memory. After her diagnosis of Parkinson’s, her journey with brain health took a more personal turn, and it is her mission to share what she has learned with anyone interested in holistic and plant-based solutions to support the nervous system. Dive deep into the fascinating world of neurochemistry and plant wisdom in Charis's class at the conference, "Maximize Memory and Focus" designed to empower you with the knowledge and tools to enhance your cognitive abilities naturally and effectively.
Rebecca Beyer
Rebecca Beyer is an Appalachian Folk herbalist, Traditional Witch, and wild food forager dedicated to living simply on the Earth. She has taught and presented at universities, conferences and gatherings over the last 10 years with the hope of showing people that living a seasonal life grounded in connection with the Old Ways is possible. Through growing, foraging, hunting, fishing and preserving her own food, she strives to create a life as close to her ancestors as possible while paying homage to the diverse peoples who created beloved Appalachia.
Rebecca is the author of two books, Mountain Magic and Wild Witchcraft. She makes her living tattooing, teaching foraging and Appalachian folk herbalism and craft classes at her school, Blood and Spicebush School of Old Craft. Rebecca currently spends her days dedicating herself to Appalachian folk arts, primitive skills, folk music and learning the names of all the beings she shares her bioregion with.
Mike Tamburo
Mike Tamburo is a world-renowned musician, composer, artist and educator. He is known and loved for his transformational live concerts performed on his personally curated set of gongs, bells and other metal instruments. A lifelong multi-instrumentalist, Tamburo has focused his talents on metal percussion instruments, string instruments (hammered dulcimer, guitar, zither, shahi baaja), as well as electronic instruments (synths, looping). Since 1994, Tamburo has shared more than 2,000 concerts and workshops. He has recorded over 70 albums, both solo and in collaboration with Crown of Eternity, Meisha, Arco Flute Foundation, Psychic Frost, Brother Ong and more, ranging from epic gong music to ecstatic and transcendental string music, as well as folk, drone, space rock, ambient, mantra music and sometimes unclassifiable sounds. This man loves music in all its forms! He teaches gong music, both in person and online with School of Gong. Tamburo is also an interdisciplinary sound artist, instrument builder, video artist, sound therapist, writer and meditation teacher.
JoAnna Farrer
JoAnna is the host of the Coffee & Divination Podcast, and the co-founder of the North Wyldewood Tradition of Witchcraft. She is a full-time professional violinist, and also practices a form of oracular divination inspired by the trance traditions of ancient Greece. On her farm in northern VT, she combines her deep love of ecology and Pagan animism through permaculture, and shares her homestead with her husband and their many farm animals. Come learn from JoAnna all about Divination at the conference. Divination is the art of obtaining knowledge through hidden means, and has been a part of civilizations around the world - likely for tens of thousands of years. Divination can help us understand situations, answer questions, and give us insight on the threads that weave our lives together. While our world undergoes this time of upheaval, studying and practicing the arts of divination can help us navigate and plan for the roads ahead.
Brian Wilkins
Brian is an author/poet, diviner, and teacher of qigong in a Northern Wu Style Taijiquan lineage. As a part of their practice, they engage with the form (or other qigong sequences) to become aware of our constant connectedness to the world we are in: in other words, we are doing Tai Chi with trees. Brian is offering a morning movement class at the conference with offer a short sequence with that keeps that goal of interconnectedness in mind. It’s accommodating to all different types of bodies, and he’s happy to modify the activity to fit anyone's physical needs.
Gert Coleman
Herbal educator, writer, gardener, editor, and herb enthusiast, Gert Coleman loves, grows, eats, and reads avidly about herbs. Retired professor of English, she lives on 100+ acres in Central New York, growing herbs, flowers, trees, and at-risk native plants with her husband and dog. As an herbal educator, she has taught humorous and informative programs for all ages at parks, museums, and conferences; helped maintain a 70' x 70' colonial herb garden for 3 decades; apprenticed with Rosemary Gladstar; compiled and edited five Herb of the Year™ books; and writes about the legends, lore, and poetry of herbs. In addition, she teaches workshops on nature writing in the wild places of New York and beyond.
Olga Tzogas
Olga has been foraging mushrooms and plants for food and medicine for many years, and started Rochester, NY based Smugtown Mushrooms in 2011 offering up fresh fungi, extracts, educational events, & fungi tours. Smugtown offers mushroom grow kits, high quality mushroom extracts, dried mushrooms, books, and more. Olga offers engaging classes like cooking classes with mushrooms and fungi walks to bring the love of mushrooms to the people. She's the instigator of the New Moon Mycology Summit . Olga also leads small groups of earth lovers to her homeland of Greece in the Fall seasons to forage mushrooms, herbs and learn the sacred ecology of the Eastern Mediterraean.
Isaac Hill
Isaac is an astrologer, esotericist, and co-host of the Plant Cunning Podcast. He is a permaculturist with over a decade of experience gardening and cultivating a native plant nursery. He's the primary gardener and grounds keeper of Cohosh Creek Herb Farm where he's planted hundreds of fruit & nut trees, shrubs, blueberries, asparagus, perennial herbs, greens, flowers, medicinal herbs and fungi and some veggies. He's also an excellent song writer and musician, leading in the Hills and the Rivers.
Isaac will lead a garden tour for one the plant walk sessions to discuss some of the garden design elements as well as highlighting some of the incredible plants he nurtures at the farm.
Alexandra Wendt
Alexandra is an astrologer, dancer and dance teacher, artist, gardener, songstress and voice teacher. This year she is apprenticing at Healing Spirits Herb Farm in Avoca, NY, an incredible herb farm and herbal product business that has been around for over 30 years. We will be adding more details to her bio soon but we wanted to start with this teaser to let you all know she will be leading us in a somatic dance experience on Friday night after dinner in the big barn. We are thrilled to be offering this type of healing movement to our conference attendees this year! Learn more about Alexandra through her Instagram page, @thefloragrimoire and through @waxingwaters where she co-host dances with Liv Sun.
AC Stauble
AC Stauble is a farmer, herbalist, community builder, educator and part time online support person for other herbalists and environmental justice advocates.
She has a small herbal product line called Traveling Herb Farmer that includes skin soothing salve, muscle rub, tinctures, teas and more. AC grows dozens of herbs and flowers at Cohosh Creek Herb Farm and Sanctuary to use in her products. She co-hosts the Plant Cunning Podcast with Isaac Hill and is producing this conference.
Join her for a garden walk at the conference to explore the medicinal herbs in the garden and fields. You'll get a sneak peak at her apothecary and kitchen on the farm where she makes herbal medicine.
Taylor Rae
Taylor Rae of Raeflower Holistics is a community herbalist, clay worker and archivist who grounds their work in Black land traditions. After studying plant science in university, Taylor craved a way of relating to nature that was more rooted in her ancestry. Now, Taylor works to create avenues for the collective remembering and return to the land traditions of her lineage for herself and her community, especially as a method of combating the systemic barriers that exist between Black folks and our relationships to nature.
Become a Sponsor
Learn more about our Sponsorship Opportunities for the conference here. We have three sponsorship levels starting at $250, so be sure to check out the options and see how your business/organization can cross pollinate with the Plant Cunning audience via our podcast, website, email and social media.
Your sponsorship helps to support our mission of building resiliency both locally and globally by helping people to deepen their connection with nature and their higher purpose. Your sponsorship will allow for adequate compensation for our speakers and musicians as well as allowing us to welcome in low-income attendees.
Thank you to our lovely sponsors for supporting the Inaugural Plant Cunning Conference last year!
Schedule Snapshot
Gather in our big red barn with herbalists, farmers, astrologers, artists, musicians to learn about the magic of plants and to deepen our connection with nature and each other.
About the Land
Cohosh Creek Herb Farm and Sanctuary is nested in the beautiful rolling hills of Central New York, high on the Allegheny Plataea on the lands of the Oneida Peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. We are honored and in awe of this place's magic and abundance and know that it has been and continues to be stewarded by both humans and the spirits of place with care and dedication.
There’s a large barn for us to have sessions in and an event tent for classes and dining outdoors overlooking a beautiful valley and the Tillette Creek (pronounced crick of course).There are fields and gardens to tour and some woodland trails to explore. Folks are welcome to come set up tents in the camps spots in the field with afternoon shade or forests.
Cohosh Creek Herb Farm
415 County Rd 41
South Edmeston, NY
Registration & Pricing
Early Bird Registration is now open!
I'll Take it All
$300
Everything included from Thursday evening camp set up to Sunday closing, meal plan and all activities.
Adult Ticket Price
$225
This is the standalone ticket price of the conference which includes all sessions Saturday & Sunday, the live music show Saturday night, and access to the tea bar all weekend. You can bring your own snacks and meals and commute or find your own local lodging.
Young Adults Age 13-18
$75
Young Adults from 12-18 can come for a reduced rate of $75.
Children under 12 are free.
You'll still need to order a meal plan if you want one.
Meal Plan Add-on
$50
Nourishing mostly local and organic foods prepared for different dietary preferences (Vegan, GF, Nut Free with options for meat & wheat eaters too). Friday dinner, Saturday Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Sunday Breakfast & Lunch Included. Tea bar will be open all weekend and accoutrements bar available for toppings to each delicious meal.
Camping Add-on
$25
Access to grounds Thursday night or Friday to set up camp and stay in your tent or vehicle for the weekend. Each adult camping should get a camping pass. Families camping with kids under 18 don’t have to get a pass for each kid, just the adults. We have water fill up, portapotties on site, a camp shower, and plenty of shady wooded spots or field spots with morning sun and afternoon shade in the garden.
Volunteer
$75
Join the Volunteer Crew
Join the volunteer squad to help facilitate a kick-ass conference. You’ll be able to attend most sessions and the keynote. You'll work alongside an amazing crew to help brew tea, prepare food, help with parking, set up and break down. Volunteering is a great way to offer your service to the community, get in to the conference at a discounted rate, and make some new friends. Interested? Email us at info@plantcunning.com for more info and to see if you are a good fit for the crew.